Kansas City News Blog

Last Thursday, someone threw a "big ol' landscaping rock" through a set of glass doors at the American Civil Liberties Union's Kansas City office. ACLU Executive Dan Winter sent out an e-mail, saying the attack was the second in three weeks.

I called Winter this morning to see why someone would chuck a rock through his front door. Winter told me that he thought the vandalism was planned given the type of rock thrown. But he has no idea who hurled the rock. 

"It may be Phelps related," Winter said, referring to Topeka's gay hating Westboro Baptist Church. "I don't know."

Winter wasn't ready to point fingers but said the timing of the vandalism coincided with the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filing a lawsuit in support of the Phelps family's right to protest in St. Joe. It was also the same day as the Phelps family's protest outside of Shawnee Mission East.

"Clearly we don't support Phelps," Winter said. "We support speech. The deal is that if you don't support unpopular speech, who's going to come around to support your speech when your speech becomes unpopular.

"Like it or not, Phelps is a religious man," Winter added. "And his followers are doing it in the name of a church. And it's a form of religious expression as well."
 
I got the impression that Winter wasn't a fan of the Phelps family or mouthpiece Shirley Phelps-Roper.

"My personal opinion is that she's the poster child for whack jobs, but whack jobs have a right to speak their mind as well," Winter said. "And somebody's got to defend the whack job's right to speak."

The windows are fixed, but the ACLU's office is adding security cameras installed.

"It's expensive to fix," Winter says. "We've had some donations."

If you want to help out, the ACLU wouldn't mind. Or if you want to celebrate free speech, the ACLU2 and the ACLU's Racial Justice Task Force throw a "Motown and the movement" party tonight from 7-10 at Lafferty's Lounge, 6301 Blue Parkway.